The Queen and the Dowager
by ariel2me
Summary: Melantha Blackwood, Dowager Lady of Winterfell, wrote to her sister Queen Betha, the new queen of the Seven Kingdoms, about the famine afflicting the North, and about the challenges and dangers Betha might face in her new position.


_Aegon's reign was a challenging one, starting as it did in the midst of a winter that had lasted three years and showed no signs of abating. There was starvation and suffering in the North, as there had been a hundred years before, in the long winter that reigned from 130 to 135 AC. King Aegon, always concerned for the welfare of the poor and weak, did what he could to increase the flow of grain and other food to the North, but some felt he did too much in this regard._

 _~ The World of Ice and Fire_

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 _I prayed daily, sweet sister. I prayed daily in the godswood that your Aegon would prevail in the Great Council. The heart tree in Winterfell does not play host to our old friends the faithful ravens, but after these many years in the North, I have resigned myself to their absence._

Betha's Aegon, previously Betha's Egg. Aegon of the House Targaryen, the Fifth of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. Aegon the Fifth; a king, an Egg no longer. The boy Melantha first saw when he came to Raventree Hall under the guise of a squire to a hedge knight did not seem like his life was destined for such a fate. _Far_ from it. Aegon the Unlikely indeed.

Betha had confided to her sister about Egg's painfully embarrassing attempt to pay her a gallant compliment. "Your hair brings out the color of your eyes, my lady," he had declared, a remark greeted with vigorous rolling of the eyes by Lord Blackwood's younger daughter.

Though, the Blackwood sisters later decided, Egg's attempt, terrible as it was, turned out to be not as cringeworthy as the attempt of Willam Stark, Melantha's betrothed, to pay _her_ a gallant compliment. Willam was fond of repeating _(frequently_ repeating) how the blackness of Melantha's hair would paint a _stark_ contrast to the whiteness of the snow in Winterfell. Willam's letters to his betrothed had been a very reliable source of mirth for Melantha and Betha in those days.

 _How young we were. How blissful and unknowing,_ Melantha reflected, from a distance of more than twenty years, from the eyes of a woman now seven years a widow.

 _My son Edwyle,_ Melantha continued the letter to her sister, _could not make the journey to King's Landing, consumed as he is with the fate and suffering of his people. If the first thaw of spring does not appear in the next few moons, I fear that more and more will die of illness and starvation, unless the Iron Throne does more to aid and protect its people._

 _Your Aegon, you have related to me in the past, Betha, is ever mindful of his duty to the weak and the suffering, to those in need of his aid and protection. The people of the North are in dire need of their king's aid and protection, after three years of harsh and unrelenting winter._

 _The envoy Edwyle sent to court to attend the Great Council faithfully voiced his support for your lord husband on behalf of the Lord of Winterfell, as he was instructed._

In truth, Artos Stark was not pleased to receive his nephew's instruction on the matter. He had brought up the possibility of throwing the support of House Stark on another candidate. "How do we know this _Aegon_ will be any better than his lord father? How do we know he will not continue Maekar's policy of neglect towards the North?" demanded the man who had missed being the Lord of Winterfell by accident of birth order, but had previously acted as his young nephew's regent before Edwyle came of age.

Artos' words might have carried more weight in Edwyle's deliberation, had he not been the one who previously insisted, during King Maekar's reign, that the North could endure the long winter with no outside assistance, not even from the Iron Throne.

"The Iron Throne did not come to our aid when Raymun Redbeard and his band of wildlings breached the Wall. And we defeated them nonetheless, _we_ men of the North," Artos had declared, triumphantly, defiantly, in front of the assembled lords of the North gathered at Winterfell's great hall.

Melantha was furious with Artos. "You forced his hand," she said to him later. "You forced Edwyle's hand into not seeking the assistance of King Maekar. This is setting up to be one of the harshest winters ever endured in the North. We could not afford to let pride dictate our response. You forced Edwyle's hand into making the wrong decision."

Artos was unrepentant. "How did I do that, good-sister? How did I force his hand? Your son is of age. I am no longer his regent. He is free to decide as he sees fit."

"He is a young man only recently coming into his full inheritance. His uncle the beloved and celebrated hero who slew Raymun Redbeard and saved the North from the attack of the wildlings had spoken out in front of all the lords of the North advocating for going our own course. How would it make him look, to decide on the _opposite_ course? He fears that the lords of the North would think him weak, would think him overly dependent on the king and the Iron Throne. You should have given him your counsel in private, before the assembly."

"I should whisper in his ears at night in the privacy of his bedchamber, like his mother does, you mean? Like you used to do with my late brother? Forgive me, Melantha, but I am not in the habit of employing womanly ploys and tricks to get my way," Artos retorted.

"Only _manly_ ploys and tricks," Melantha shot back.

 _It is my greatest hope,_ _dearest sister,_ Melantha continued her letter, _that you would be able to persuade your Aegon into seeing the severity of our plight in the North. His late father King Maekar was somehow convinced - or managed to convince himself because it was convenient for him to do so - that because we were late in seeking the assistance of the Iron Throne, we were not truly in need of aid to survive this long winter. I confess that the lateness in seeking the assistance of the Iron Throne has been detrimental to our own people, but my son has had to contend with various voices within our own borders clamoring for the North going its own way and dealing with its own problem._

And Melantha has had to contend with Edwyle's fears and uncertainties, as well as the accusations levied against her by unscrupulous men. "My uncle, the hero of the battle at Long Lake, how could he be wrong? And even if he _is_ wrong, if I defy the course _he_ proposed, he and his supporters will accuse me of being a weakling hiding behind his mother's skirt, a puppet whose string is pulled by his lady mother. They accuse you of meddling too much, Mother, both during my reign as the Lord of Winterfell and during Father's reign. It was only during uncle Artos' regency that your influence was successfully curbed, they claimed."

"Your lord father valued my counsel. He was his own man who made his own decisions, but he had faith and trust in my ability and my judgment."

"He did not appoint you as my regent."

"He did not appoint any regent at all before he left for Long Lake. Your uncle returned with your father's body and claimed that your father's dying wish was that _he_ should be regent. Who would dare to question the word of the hero of the battle at Long Lake? Who would dare to question the word of the man who cradled his brother's body in his lap, swearing retribution on the man who slew that brother, and succeeded in extracting that retribution? Artos was _untouchable_ when he returned from Long Lake."

"I wish to be seen as my own man, Mother."

"Then _be_ your own man! Not your uncle's man. _You_ are the Lord of Winterfell, not Artos Stark."

It should not have surprised her, Melantha reflected, that her influence on her husband and her son was seen as suspect in some quarters, as detrimental. A woman exercising even a modicum of power, even from behind the scene, would always be seen as threatening by some men.

 _Though you must always be mindful, Betha, that your attempt to persuade and convince your lord husband towards a particular path, in this matter or in any other, should not be seen by others, especially by other_ men _, as an attempt to control your husband, or to mislead him, or to exercise power that rightfully belongs to him. It is a delicate balancing act, and I myself have not always been successful in finding that balance. I pray, sweet sister, that your path as Queen will be less treacherous than the path I have had to traverse, first as the Lady of Winterfell, and now as the Dowager Lady of Winterfell._

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 **A/N:** There is no confirmation in canon about the precise relationship between Betha Blackwood and Melantha Blackwood, but the timeline seems to suggest that they belong in the same generation. In this fic, I'm assuming that they are sisters, not cousins.


End file.
